With a pair of deadlines looming, North Carolina is suing to try to regain control of a nearly 2,000-acre Chatham County economic development site from VinFast.
The suit alleges that the Vietnamese electric vehicle manufacturer won't be able to have its planned car manufacturing facility open by July 2026 or employ 1,750 people at the Moncure site by the end of this year.
Those deadlines are both part of an option built into the state's sales agreement for three parcels that make up the megasite. By failing to meet them, the state says it should be able to re-purchase the site.
And if neither of those arguments are persuasive, North Carolina officials are also pointing to a clause in their agreement with VinFast saying that "vertical construction" on buildings and structures needed to begin by Jan. 1, 2024. The state is alleging that while VinFast has graded the site and poured some concrete, nothing has been built above ground.
“VinFast agreed to build a factory and create jobs for North Carolinians – it didn’t do either. When North Carolina makes a deal, we build in protection for taxpayers. VinFast broke the deal, so we’re using that protection to find a project for this site that will create jobs," Attorney General Jeff Jackson, a Democrat, wrote in a statement.
VinFast has said publicly that it could open the factory by 2028, two years after the deadline in its agreement with North Carolina.
In the state's telling, VinFast first asked North Carolina for an extension on the 2026 target on May 10, 2024, a meeting at which the car manufacturer said a slowdown in global electric vehicle sales was making it difficult for it to secure financing. State officials told VinFast they couldn't change the agreed-upon timeline.
In the lawsuit, North Carolina officials express skepticism that VinFast would even be able to meet the 2028 target the company had proposed. And even if VinFast could build a factory by then, they argue, it falls outside of the maximum 18-month "cure" period the state is able to grant the company to offer it a chance to come in compliance with their original agreement.
State officials also allege that while VinFast cleared the site of trees in 2023, it stopped any further work there in December 2024. A clause in the site development agreement between VinFast and North Carolina says the state can claw back funds used for site prep if work halts for more than 12 consecutive months before 2032.
"VinFast has failed to take any concrete action that shows it can and will fulfill its obligation to the State. VinFast abandoned work on the site for over a year. Not only did the Company fail to create jobs — it made zero progress towards the construction of any buildings or structures," says the lawsuit, which was filed Thursday in Wake County Superior Court.
A request for comment sent to VinFast's general communications portal was not returned Thursday afternoon.
VinFast was founded in 2017 and quickly looked to open a factory in the United States. When the Chatham County factory was announced in 2022, VinFast said it expected to finish the first phase by 2024.
At the time of the 2022 announcement, VinFast was the largest economic development project in North Carolina history. VinFast said it planned to invest $4 billion and employ 7,500 people. The site would feature not only a car factory but also a bus manufacturing facility and an electric vehicle battery production plant.
'Time has run out'
VinFast's agreement with North Carolina required that it start constructing vertical buildings on its first phase by January 1, 2024. That has not happened, say North Carolina officials.
When North Carolina officials have asked VinFast for proof of vertical construction, the suit says, VinFast has sent photos of concrete footers being poured or retaining walls instead of anything showing free-standing structures built above ground.
"VinFast has never provided photos of any upright columns or vertical structures built into the building footers," the lawsuit states.
North Carolina officials argue that even finishing a foundation for the facility would require hundreds more footers to be poured.
"VinFast cannot begin vertical construction of a manufacturing facility until it has completed the underground foundation of the building. The company has yet to advance beyond the preliminary stage and has now run out of time to do so," the lawsuit states.
Beyond that, VinFast has never actually been issued a building permit. Chatham County was poised to do so on May 29, 2024, the suit says, but required VinFast to inform the county which contractors would be working on the site.
The company never responded to that request.
The January 1, 2024, deadline is important to the new lawsuit, North Carolina officials argue, because a potential 18-month "cure" period offered under the agreement between the state and VinFast has already lapsed.
In a new building permit application for a foundation submitted to Chatham County on March 6, VinFast reduced the scope of the project. The application said the facility would cover about 236 acres of the site and be built to employ 1,400 people.
That projected employment, which is for the fully built out project, is fewer than the 1,750 people VinFast's agreement with North Carolina says it needs to employ at a manufacturing facility on the site by this year.
“VinFast has not fulfilled its commitments. Today’s action is about protecting taxpayers and getting the Chatham County mega-site back on the market to support future good-paying manufacturing jobs," Governor Josh Stein, a Democrat, said in a written statement.
Trying to claw back $80 million
As part of the economic development package, the N.C. General Assembly appropriated $450 million of taxpayer dollars to the project for site preparation. That included up to $125 million to VinFast, as well as up to $250 million to the N.C. Department of Transportation and up to $75 million to the City of Sanford for water and sewer extensions to the site.
But the site development agreement that outlines how that money is supposed to be used states that if construction halts for at least a year, the state can claw back any funds it sent to VinFast.
North Carolina is now alleging that VinFast failed to do anything at the site for a full calendar year, meaning the state can claw back about $80 million it sent to the company for grading and other site preparation.
As proof, the suit points to Clayco, the company's previous contractor, Clayco, terminated its contract with VinFast on June 28, 2024, due to delays from the company and its failure to prove that it had the financing to build the manufacturing facility. In a lawsuit, Clayco officials would later allege that while they were contracted to perform construction, the facility's design was only 50% complete in June 2024.
VinFast also terminated its agreement with construction company Barnhart in December 2024. In April 2025, VinFast told North Carolina that no work had been done since Barnhart left and said it was considering using the site as a "supplier park" instead of the announced manufacturing facility.
On December 11, 2025, VinFast executives met with North Carolina officials. At that meeting, North Carolina told VinFast that based on the lack of progress at the site, it was ready to begin discussions about triggering its option to purchase the megasite. VinFast officials pushed back, the lawsuit says, saying they still planned to build a manufacturing facility on the site.
Attorney General Jeff Jackson sent VinFast a letter on Jan. 6, 2026, formally informing the company that North Carolina believed it was in violation of the economic development agreement.
In that letter, Jackson told VinFast the state would seek to claw back the $80 million if the company "did not comply with the state's exercise of the option."
VinFast officials pushed back in February, arguing work was ongoing at the site, including erosion control, and that VinFast was working to secure financing and sign new agreements with contractors for the project.
In a series of letters over the ensuing months, VinFast made claims about the scope of the project, potential financing and what work was being conducted. None of those satisfied North Carolina officials, particularly VinFast's insistence that it plans to finish construction in 2028.
"Far from assuring the state of its ability to fulfill its agreements, the company repeatedly repudiated its agreements throughout its responses," the lawsuit states.
